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Far out

By Maggie McDonald

While we’re still gazing skywards, check out these two from Harvard University Press&colon; A Thin Cosmic Rain (£11.95/£17.95) by Michael Friedlander on the trail of cosmic rays that bathe the Earth. The other, Nearest Star (£11.50/&dollar;16.95), is about the Sun itself. Leon Golub and Jay Pasachoff guide you through the techniques for studying the Sun. Farther afield, Marcus Chown’s The Universe Next Door (Headline, £7.99) tackles ideas at the edge of science, the ones with the “wow” factor.